Between Past and Present Tense
by Miss Lily Rose Snape
Summary: Hermione enters her office to find a strange - but beautiful - gift awaiting her. But who is it from?


Even after five years of teaching at Hogwarts and getting up hours before any sensible person would willingly be awake, let alone be at work, Hermione sometimes suspects that the stress it puts on her body is too much and that she is actually losing her mind, coming apart at the seams.

When Hermione walks into her office at 5:30am on a Wednesday morning, and finds every surface that will stand still covered in roses as red as the gaudy nail polish her mother loves so much…she isn't sure what to think.

"You okay?"

Hermione nearly jumps out of her skin.

Dumbledore holds up his hands, as if to calm a dangerous animal.

Hermione shakes her head, feeling silly. "Sorry, I…"

"I'm assuming your biggest fan is the culprit?"

"Excuse me?" Hermione squeaks.

Dumbledore smiles. "Your gentlemen friend, Mr. Weasley…?"

"I…I don't know," Hermione wonders why that wasn't her first thought. "It makes sense, though, right? For the man I'm seeing to send me flowers? So many flowers that they fill up my entire office…"

The roses are on the desk, on her book shelves, on the couch, on the floor…they're even in the sink. Not in vases, or even in bunches. Laid out flat, loose petals everywhere, their stems criss-crossing each other, like they're leading her somewhere…

It's just the type of ridiculous, sweeping gesture that usually only happen in movies or in the combined imaginations of women the world over.

_My mother would be swooning right now, _Hermione realises. But all she feels is...confused.

Dumbledore gives her this sideways look and Hermione fidgets. Hermione liked Albus from the get go – he was so pleasant, so supportive, despite her age and inexperience and propensity to ramble – but he hides a sharp mind behind a façade of seemingly numb decency better than anyone she's ever met.

"Of course it does," Albus says after a moment so long that Hermione has almost forgotten the question he's answering. He is smiling at her again, his eyes kind. He's patiently waiting for her to get herself together, as always. Hermione can almost–

"Oh. My. _God_!"

Hermione rolls her eyes; it really is too early for this. Even Albus cannot completely hide his cringe.

"I _looooove _roses!" Lavender the new professor of Divination shrieks. "Where'd they all _come_ from? Is it that your delicious producorial guy?"

_Still has some work to do with that dictionary, I see…_Hermione thinks.

"He's _gorrrrrrrr_-geous!" Lavender continues.

"Er, yes…" Hermione replies. As in, _yes, he is gorgeous_, not _yes, he did send the flowers_…but it's too late.

Lavender has already launched herself into the main hall of Hogwarts, squealing to any and all about Hermione's boyfriend's amazing taste in flowers. Wolf whistles and coos follow Lavenders's announcement.

Albus merely looks dumbstruck, obviously running back over the recent sequence of events in his mind, hoping to find out how they arrived at this conclusion.

Hermione looks at the ground, hoping it will open up and swallow her whole.

Naturally, it is right at this moment of utter chaos that Severus Snape strides into the Great Hall, his face an almost perfect mirror of Dumbledore's. "What the hell is all this ruckus about?" Snape thunders.

"Ron Weasley sent Hermione _flowers_!" Lavender cries, rushing over and grabbing Snape's arm, much to his obvious alarm. "And not just a bunch of flowers…a whole _room full _of flowers, Professor Snape!"

There is a long pause. "Flowers?"

"Red roses!" A chorus of wistful female sighs ricochet off the great hall walls. "Isn't that _romantic_?"

Hermione risks looking up out of the corner of her eye. Severus looks…

...appalled? Angry?

She isn't quite sure.

"Señor Dipshit?" Snape sneers. "I thought you got bored of him?" he asks, looking directly at Hermione.

"Er…"

The reaction is instant and terrible.

"Oh. My. GOD! "

"_What?"_

_"_You broke up with him?"

_Jesus,_ is all Hermione can think. _It's going to be a long day._

What Severus said wasn't quite the truth… Hermione and Ron were bubbling along just fine, thank you very much. He was nothing short of wonderful. If she had conjured him to life via her deepest-buried fantasies and sheer willpower, he couldn't be more perfect. He was good-looking, smart, driven, funny, affectionate, supportive…

The romantic in her loved it.

The cynic in her was permanently suspicious that he was hiding some terrible, dark secret that was waiting to spring forth from the shadows at the most inopportune moment possible, like some sort of feral, man-eating beast.

"Is the pungent floral fragrance wafting around in here interrupting your concentration?"

Hermione didn't look up, but she couldn't help but smile. "Nowhere near as much as you are."

"I aim to please," Severus says, sounding far too delighted with himself.

"Has that twenty-five years you have on me has done anything at all for your maturity level?"

"Nothing whatsoever," Severus replies jovially, sitting down across from her and picking up the nameplate off her desk, twirling it between his fingers.

Hermione folds her hands in front of her and looks at Snape expectantly. He very rarely shows up in her office unannounced and Severus's deliberately noisy, scene-stealing entrance would make Elizabeth Taylor proud.

But Severus seems fascinated by the nameplate in his hands. "Did your parents really christen you Hermione Jane? I mean that is your middle name right?'"

Hermione looks at him blankly. "Er…"

"I won't tell Lavender," Severus says.

"How terribly kind of you, _Severus Tobias_," Hermione drawls.

"The only people who ever call me 'Severus Tobias' are my parents," he says airily, and Hermione's jaw nearly hits her desk.

_He's sharing personal details? With me?_Hermione is baffled, and becoming more so by the moment. "When…when you're in trouble?"

"No one can scold me as well as you, _Hermione_," Severus laughs.

"I aim to please," Hermione replies, parroting him.

Severus just smiles, and continues to twist her name plate around in his hands, his eyes following the glints the smooth silver surface pick up under the candle light.

"Er…" Hermione says again. "Is there something I can help you with, Severus?"

Severus looks up, pulling one of the ridiculous faces that he is famed for. "I can't just pop by for a visit?" He asks, feigning hurt. "I've heard nothing all morning but the romance-novel-devouring women that populate this school going on and on about the _absolutlely bee-yoo-tee-ful _roses in your office, and I can't even drop be to have a look myself?"

Hermione rolls her eyes. "Well, you missed the full display," she says. "They were literally all over the desk and the shelves and my chair and even the floor when I got here."

"Oh?"

Hermione can't help but smile, now that she thinks about it. It would have taken the perpetrator a good hour at least to lay the flowers and petals all around her office in such organised chaos. "The house elves offered to get rid of them for me," Hermione says, reaching out to touch the smooth petals that are still strewn between her notebook and inkpot. "But they were too beautiful to go into the bin. I've put them in bunches." She motions around the room, where more than a dozen vases of varying shapes, sizes and materials now sit, holding the hundreds of roses that brightened Hermione's morning.

"They're all in full bloom," Severus says, his voice taking that strange, quiet tone Hermione rarely hears. He leans forward and gently touching the roses that sit in the centre of her desk, in the most beautiful vase Hermione could find. "Do you like them?"

Hermione looks up. "The roses?" When the expected Snape parry is not forthcoming – to her surprise – Hermione replies, "Of course. They're a lovely gift, and he took a lot of care in setting it all up."

Severus stops. "Who did?"

Hermione laughs…nervously. "Ron."

Severus looks at her for a long moment. "Of course," he says quietly. "I'm glad Señor Dipshit has finally got his act together."

"Er…well, he didn't leave a card or anything…"

"Miss Granger!" Dumblrdore appears at the door. "Oh, hello, Severus," he says pointedly. "Hermione, Harry and Mrs Potter here to see you. Something about wanting to see if the stories about your secret admirer leaving your office strewn with Goblins gold jewellery this morning is accurate?"

"Hermione!" Ginny says, sweeping into her office. "My God, girl, you're your own headline this morning! The whole bloody school is talking about…"

Hermione sits there in stunned silence.

It's not until a few minutes – and three more groups of friends and family – later that Hermione notices Severus has slipped away.

"I wish I could claim credit for all this, 'Mione," Ron says, his voice – usually a comfort to her – taking all her dreams and ideals and assumptions and twisting them into an ugly, foreign shape she doesn't recognise. "It's amazing! But…it wasn't me."

"It…it wasn't you?"

Ron looks down at the floor. "No."

"Then, who…who else would do this?"

Ron shrugs.

"Who else would do this?" Hermione knows she's making him feel awkward, but at the moment she almost doesn't care. _Just once…just this once, I thought it might be my turn…_she finds herself thinking. "Is it a practical joke?"

Ron looks horrified. "I'm sure that's not it!" he cries. "Maybe you have a secret admirer? I know for a fact that most of the students in this school think you're pretty amazing," Ron says, smiling his perfect smile and looking terribly pleased with himself for being the man Hermione chooses to have on her arm.

Hermione smiles back; she wouldn't be human if she weren't pleased at his words. "I've never had a secret admirer before," she says quietly.

"I'm sure you have," Ron says. "They just didn't cover every surface of your office in rose petals."

_Then who…?_

"Would you like to grab an early dinner?" Ron asks gently, cutting across her thoughts. "I'm done for the day, and I know you like your sleep…"

He holds out his hand.

Hermione reaches her hand out to take his-

When suddenly everything clicks in.

_It couldn't be… Could it?_


End file.
